


Poor Company

by typhe



Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Boundaries, LHM, M/M, Silence Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 12:30:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16661199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typhe/pseuds/typhe
Summary: Van doesn't want to be touched.  Stef is resting his voice.  PWP.





	Poor Company

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies to Harukami for the title - her fic [Good Company](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4606842) is one of my all time faves in this fandom. 
> 
> This doesn't fit in canon, in that Van isn't dead - choose your own AU here. 
> 
> Thanks to Gildaurel for her encouragement in getting this out <3

Van looked up from his niece's letter, only to find that Stefen was watching him; a glance over his shoulder, his hair tucked behind his ear and trying to escape. Stef was at Vanyel's desk near the window, claiming the best of the dying daylight for his work. Van and his stack of letters had been relegated to the fireside, where he hoped the warmth could spur a few mechanical replies from his leaden brain. It wasn't working. Nothing was working today.

Stef's casual vigil, a look here and there, or a tap of his knuckles on the table whenever Van's mood threatened to wander, had been going on for the better part of two candlemarks. The moments Stef hadn't wasted on paying undue attention to Vanyel had been spent staring at his manuscript paper and swaying minutely from side to side in the current of his frenetic ideas. Of every word or note that passed through the funnel of Stef's mind, Vanyel wagered one in ten scrawled its way through Stef's curled left hand, leaving the other nine to overflow into the air between them. He could feel them crowding in the silence, a steadily rising pressure that made every breath taste like the edge of a storm.

His nerves grated. He shouldn't have let Stef join him tonight, but being alone when he felt like this was even worse and made it much more likely that his thoughts would turn on themselves. Stef's glances were a reminder that he knew it too, and he couldn't honestly tell Stef his concern was unwarranted. Only that it was wasted on a hopeless situation and he honestly wished the sun would go out already and at least let them start again in new day in which his mind might be capable of more than wound-licking. Stef would leave if he asked it, and he rightfully should, yet he couldn't even bear to do that. But one of them had to admit that spending their evening together was a mistake and it wouldn't be Stefen, would it?

It hurt to recollect how Stef had reached for him earlier, and at a word from Van had paused and folded his hands in the air. A reasonable man would have left as soon as Van had informed him he wasn't in a mood to be touched tonight. But his lifebonded was not a reasonable man; he was an insistent, stubborn fool who would never flinch from someone else's pain. Usually, he'd try to draw Van out on how he'd strained that particular wound this time, and talking through it with him and listening to his words in return had often relieved the pain. If Van couldn't speak of it, Stef would sing til he was soothed, or tell stories or share Palace gossip until hours had passed without Vanyel having dwelt on his pain for a moment.

But Stefen was resting his voice.

And usually, Van didn't mind that at all - and that it frustrated his loquacious partner so much only drove him to find sport in it for them both. Instrumentals, long silences. Love. Stef had mouthed so many apologies that first time, and Van had realised with some surprise that Stef thought Van needed him to divert and entertain him at every moment. Convincing him otherwise had been a pleasure. It was good to be quiet together, usually. Today, it was a disaster.

Van watched Stef's hands move - writing another few notes, dipping his pen again, dripping ink over the desk - Stef pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and mopped at it in frustration. Stef had a perfectly good desk of his own, indeed an entire study, but Van nevertheless often found his own scattered with chewed bits of quills, fingernails, scraps of paper written over thrice until there was not a bare corner. How unfortunate, to be lifebonded to a Bard. A perfectly brilliant Bard whose touch he couldn't bear right now and whose sweet voice was lost to him due to careless, excessive song.

He stared at that errant lock of hair falling from behind Stef's right ear, tucked again to no avail, and Van thought about taming it properly, combing it out and putting a ribbon around it - Stef turned, and their eyes met, and Vanyel hated to admit how much even that one silent look was a boon to him. He really couldn't have stood to be alone with his feelings right now, and Stef _understood_ , and it always felt right to be near him and to look deep into the fire of his eyes.

Stef carefully looked away, and Van felt his pen draw a hidden line.

And that was the other problem. Always that low thrum of attraction between them. One well-placed touch, or word, or even a more lingering look could have heightened it into arousal. Stef half-turned in his chair and began to retune his gittern, looking deliberately out of the window. Van stared again at his half-written letter. Less than half. He didn't really know where to begin it. Stef delicately fingered a few chords, and then paused to scrawl them down. He slipped his pen between his lips and played them again. Half-smiling, lips folding around the errant left-wing quill. Gods.

Van turned away, swallowing hard. _What kind of partner am I if I capriciously refuse his touch even when I want him?_

Stef tapped his foot in frustration, and moments later, he tossed a scrap of balled-up paper across the room; Vanyel caught it in one hand, and unfolded it. On one side were notations, crossed-out staves. On the other, he read in Stef's angular scrawl: _Sorry to subject you to this. Sounds like a cat being strangled & I don't know where it went wrong._

Van sighed. "Two days ago you told me this might be the finest song you'd ever written and it would definitely replace _Stars of Winter_ as the definitive version of Herald Noran's story."

Stef tossed another scrap of paper without writing on it. Van incinerated it in midair. Doubly wasteful. A cloud of ash drizzled down onto the rug. Stef startled to the edge of his chair, and looked at him in affront.

_Damn._ Stupid, and he wouldn't have done it if he wasn't already a bundle of tight-strung nerves. He should apologise, but felt too bitter to bear it. _If I could_ kill _him in one moment of discomfort, I should at least have the decency to refrain from showboating._ Stef held his eyes until Van looked away in shame.

_It's bad enough that I can't bear to let him touch me. But this is why I can't let him touch me._ He did trust Stef, utterly, but the thought of trusting his own reactions and his own body brought that encroaching dread and regret back to him.

A few chords rang out from Stef's gittern, and repeated a few times over. Van felt the music lapping at the dark edges of his mind. It was what Stef did, how he treated any of Van's old injuries - he moved carefully around sore spots, he soothed pain, and chided Van if he tried to strain himself. And then he got on with whatever else was in his grand plan for the day.

_I really wish we could talk_. It did help, but not if it was one-sided; he really _needed_ Stef's reassurance that this wasn't just a joyless burden for him. But Stef could say nothing, and that left Van to wonder if he even found his presence bearable. 

"Am I distracting you?" Van asked.

Stef turned in his seat, the end of his quill wedged between his teeth. He shook his head, and tapped his temple with two fingers. That was a signal they'd originally created for use in crowded rooms but which proved just as useful when Stef was resting his voice; _listen to me._

It was so easy to slip into his thoughts. Stef couldn't return the contact, and this wasn't one of those times when his thoughts were focused on some single urgent message. Stef was a mess of energy, tangled like a ball of wool; scraps of fourth-century history, of context, poetry, things he wanted the song to say, things it had unexpectedly said instead. Was it boring? was it unoriginal? could you dance to it? did any of it matter now? why was he bothering with this topic - why - well there was one detail that had spawned one couplet and he couldn't rest until it was _out of here_. Thoughts of his erratic fortunes twisted within his changeling brain - silence grated his nerves, and he was frustrated, almost angry - at himself more than anyone - that he'd lost his voice after scraping to the whims of his patrons. And beyond the roiling thoughts, Van was surprised to see himself - like catching one's reflection unexpected and barely recognising it. No distraction, no burden, but a calm eye amid the chaos - a place of strength and stability from which anything else could be faced.

Van let go of that vision with some reluctance - in truth, the hardest thing about touching Stef's mind was letting go of it afterwards. It was like trying to climb from a bramble thicket; he found sharp pieces of it stuck in his hair for hours afterward, most often Stef's keen instinct for who to please, and how - an instinct that had once been all that kept him alive. Van shook himself out of it. " _Ashke_ , you're working too hard."

Stef turned in his chair and rose on the seat with one hand to its back, the other spread across half his face in a pantomime of incredulity. 

Alright. So perhaps Vanyel wasn't best placed to tell him such things. "Fine," he muttered.

Stef turned back to his work, and his knuckles wove a _rattattat_ on the table, and he set his pen aside in agitation. He picked up a tuning fork, spun it idly in his fingers. It was all too much to watch any more, and Van walked slowly to his side, grabbing the back of his elbow.

The tuning fork fell from Stef's hand, chiming as it hit the ground. Stef understood - he didn't move, didn't reach back to touch him, only leaned his head back a little. Through the rolled-up linen of his sleeve, Van felt him quiver like a willow stem in the breeze, as he did when some word but barely eluded the reach of his mind and he could do nothing to capture it.

"Gods, I love you," Stef said.

"Shut up," Van told him.

"Make me," he muttered, tilting his head back against Van's ribs.

Van closed his hand over Stef's mouth. 

Stef gasped under his palm, and pressed his lips tight against Van's fingers. All that distance between them gone, and their connection felt like a lightning strike, like _I can't_ and _I am_ were one and the same. Van was hard in an instant. And Stef knew, he always knew, and he stayed still, only his mouth moving softly under Vanyel's hand.

_Gods damn everything._ In a burst of strength he wrenched Stef's chair half around, scraping it against the floor. The tuning fork clattered and sang across the floor. Stef stared up at him, clear hazel eyes riven with shock and desire. His fists curled tight at his sides. His thin shoulders trembled. He made no move toward Vanyel, for all Van felt his need to fling himself into his lover's arms. He wouldn't move. He was utterly in control and deadly patient, waiting on Vanyel's word.

He remained perfectly still while Van tugged his belt loose and pulled open the ties of his breeches, freeing his lover's erect cock. _Great. Lovely, in fact. Gods know what I'm going to do with it._

Stef raised one demure eyebrow at him, as if to say, _whatever you like_.

Van stooped to kiss him, and grabbed Stef's shirt in one balled hand. Stef was pliant under him, lips wide open, and Van plundered his mouth with his frantic tongue, tasting his silence and patience. He dared to come close, to sit straddled on Stef's knees. It was alright. Stef wouldn't do anything he didn't ask for. Stef leaned back from him, stretching til Van could pull his clothes up off him. There. That was better. Now what? He didn't even know what to want. Release, yes, and the closeness of Stef's body, but his skin still crawled at the thought of having another's hands on him.

Stef's lips were pressed together. A drop of blood hung from his third knuckle. Van grabbed his hand, uncurled it, and pressed his lips to the place where an errant fingernail had gouged his palm. He exerted his Gift of Healing enough to close the wound, and even that tiny connection sent Stef's eyes rolling back in pleasure. His very restraint made his expressiveness all the sharper, and Van needed him so badly. _If I dared unshield at all_ , but he loathed the thought of sharing such an ugly mood when Stef was tolerating quite enough of him already.

"Lie down, please," he asked, scrambling up from Stef's lap. Stef stood, his untied breeches dropping to the floor, and he looked to Van as he pulled down his underbreeches as well. Van nodded. "Please. I, I don't know if," and Stef set a finger to his own lips and shrugged, as if he didn't _care_ how far Van wanted this to go. How _could_ he not care? He turned on his bare toes - lithe, naked and fearless, shameless and completely open. Van could have devoured him on the spot. Stef lay back on their bed, and without taking his eyes away from Van, he raised his hands to grip the headboard.

_Anything. Everything._ Even watching Stef breathe seemed unbearably erotic. Van tried to stop thinking and give himself over to impulse - his lover was beyond inviting his hands to roam. Stef was tractable under his hands, sighing into Van's touch at his chest, his neck. His nipples were firm between Van's fingers. He combed his hand through a silken wave of Stef's hair. He held Stef's earlobe, his throat, feeling the gentle movements of his breath, of his blood pulsing. His body warm and vulnerable in Vanyel's hands, and utterly trusting. And hard, gods. Van traced his erection with a finger. Stef didn't move. Only his hands twitched. His naked body hid nothing, withheld nothing - _he's given me complete control._

Van wrapped his hand about Stef's cock, testing its warm slip over its inner rigidity. _Only flesh_ , and the thought was reassuring and shameful. There was no _only_ about it with Stef, was there? His lover's tonguetip was held tight between his teeth, as if he were fighting not to emit a sound. Van pulled at him firmly, and Stef drew a sharp breath, his hips lifting.

_I want more of him._ He felt too warm, and not close enough. He caught Stef's gentle, hungry eyes. "Would you turn over?" he asked, and his lover smiled so dazzlingly that Van felt his dark thoughts flee into the shadows. He reached into the lower drawer of the nightstand for that oil Stef was fond of - rare for them to use it quite like this, but Stef was eager enough. He _did_ make a low sound as Van's fingers slipped into him.

"Shut up," Van reminded him. "If you don't rest properly, you'll only have more days of not being able to sing or talk, and you're already half climbing the walls." He parted his fingers deep inside, and he wasn't sure if Stef's hissed _fuck me_ was in response to that or his comment. "Oh, I am planning on it." Stef's forearms had dropped to his pillow, his hair falling over his face as he glared back at Van in all his restrained impatience. He was relaxing, though, in a way he'd seemed incapable of before Van had closed that tension between them.

Van pulled off his clothes and spread a palmful of the oil over his cock, enjoying the sight of Stef's ass moving as he breathed. He leaned against his lover, nestled warm in his crack, and Stef twitched quite maliciously against him. He was so improbably, strikingly lovely that it could be blessedly hard to think of anything else - the light muscles of his back, his delusive daintiness - as if Vanyel's eyes expected a fold of paper only for his hands to encounter tempered steel. There was no softness in his body; all of his gentleness and grace came from his voice, his way of touching, the very things that were beyond him right now. He was a needle of a man, and here Vanyel was threading his eye.

He pushed the head of his cock inside Stef's body, and white-hot heat enclosed him. It had been a long time since they'd done this - it wasn't what he most often wanted - but he wanted it _now_ , so badly. He eased further in and Stef folded under him, burying his face in a pillow and clenching his hands tight. Everything he could offer and no more. Stef had melted every obstacle between them.

Van moved slowly, feeling Stef breathe deep as he adjusted to the cock inside him. He went a little further with each stroke, and Stef _let_ him, relaxing under him and moving back in counterpoint, demanding all that Van wanted to give. In the closeness, the sweetest embrace of him, Vanyel felt emotions rise up unbidden, escaping from wherever he had held them - to desire was to fear, to be vulnerable. But Stef had offered this, offered up his body on any terms Van would take, and that cut through all danger. He couldn't keep apart from Stef, couldn't unmingle their feelings. 

He thrust deep and hard, craving that sense that they were one being, that Stef needed this because he needed it because Stef needed it, and always. Even silent and passive, he felt the sound and physicality of Stef's essence surrounding him, drawing him from his cold shell of thoughts. Ecstasy tightened his nerves, reminding his body that closeness could be more than use and pain - as if for as long as this lasted he would be kept safe by Stef's yielding, by his _kindness_ , by his empty, clenched hands. By his stark, nonsensical beauty. By how he understood Van better than he did himself. Van reached under him, holding his cock again. Stef raised his head, fighting every instinct for his silence. Van knew how to touch him, how to make him cry out, and that knowledge now felt like such cruelty, such perfect depravity.

Stef arched under him, and Van moved faster, losing all finesse with his hand and his hips. Stef's head tipped back, his mouth open in a silent cry, and Van felt the clear note of his climax ring past all the noise inside him. Stef shuddered around Van's cock, wringing him out as he spilt in Vanyel's hand. The tightness, the echo of Stef's pleasure, was enough, and Van made one final thrust, releasing deep inside him.

He rolled off Stef's back, and Stef turned beside him, til they lay looking upward at the bed canopy together. His hips tingled with aftershocks. His upper arm rested against Stef's, and it didn't matter at all, except that it brought him warmth. He felt all turned about and...cleansed, in some way that made no sense at all, when he reeked of oil and sweat and residue. It never made sense. He felt ashamed of his own caprice and his awkward, unpredictable wounds, but Stef radiated deep contentment and lingering yearning. Maybe he could forgive Van anything.

"Stef," he whispered, and his lover turned his gentle eyes on him. "Would you touch me?"


End file.
